Proposal: elitism
Times out and fails at 3-3. -Purplebeard
Adminned at 04 Mar 2011 00:10:58 UTC
change the second paragraph of rule 2.3.1 “balance” to the following:
a learn grunt with a field which is the same as the apex pursuit is an apex grunt. when an apex grunt passes and becomes a learn think, its cost is not changed, but the cost of all other pending learn thinks goes up by 5. a learn grunt with a field which is the same as the nadir pursuit is a nadir grunt. when a nadir grunt passes and becomes a learn think, its cost is half of what it normally would be. if every pursuit has exactly the same number of cavemen as every other pursuit, then the social order is balanced and all pursuits are considered to be nadir pursuits. if the social order is not balanced and there is no single pursuit with fewer cavemen than any other, then there is no nadir pursuit. if the social order is not balanced and there is no single pursuit with more cavemen than any other, then there is no apex pursuit.
and to rule 2.3.1 “balance” add the following paragraph:
as a weekly action, any caveman may change his own pursuit. if this affects the social order, then any caveman may note the new social order on the research projects wiki page
the principle behind this is that the smaller social classes are typically more elite. compare the number of nuclear physicists to the number of janitors, for example. so a pursuit with lots of cavemen is probably clumsier. one with only a few is more efficient.
this is meant to encourage cavemen to take on new or rare pursuits, rather than glomming to the biggest one. but of course, the more cavemen take on a rare pursuit, the less rare it becomes. and so the more incentive to switch to an even rarer one. this balances the social order in an effective way, and it makes it more likely that we may get a completely balanced social order.
as of yet, there is no mechanism for cavemen to change their pursuit. the one i’ve proposed is a slow mechanism—once per week at max. i figure that slow is better than none. if you think it would be better to make this easier but you like the rest of this proposal, then i suggest that you vote for and then write your own proposal modifying the mechanism for changing pursuits.
me dumb dumb but think rare and smaller not mean elite or valuable. me know small cult of woodwoses dat are crazy, not elite. so no join them. me like idea but not know how caveman act. me think elite is from hard to do. being common caveman is easy dat why do many.
Saakara: